


The Fear of Falling Apart

by Cy_Fi_TheAnswerIs42



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: ...happyish ending, And I still didn't use any of the lyrics, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Mikey, As it should be, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I listened to 2 whole Fall Out Boy albums trying to come up with a title for this, I read over this 3 times and that's all the beta-reading we're getting here, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, No t-cest here, Rip my life, Saying that because I'll never write that, Self-Harm, The Butterfly Project, Things aren't fixed but this helped, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 21:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17856944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cy_Fi_TheAnswerIs42/pseuds/Cy_Fi_TheAnswerIs42
Summary: Donatello promised his family that he would stop, that when he had the urge and was struggling that he’d talk to them.…that is so much easier said than done.





	The Fear of Falling Apart

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of background information so you know what’s going on here: Donatello has depression and used self-harm as a way of coping with it, cutting his wrists and hiding the marks under his wraps. Eventually, his family found out and are trying to help him with his depression, having him promise to come to them whenever he was struggling. It’s been (maybe?) a month or so since they found out.

He wanted something sharp.

Donnie was just taking a quick break, a moment to take a look at what progress he’d made and what needed to be done next, when memories of a knife and blood flashed in his mind’s eye. Suddenly hyperaware of his exposed wrists, Donnie closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in, trying to ignore the phantom feeling of sliced skin and how the darkness that had been lurking in the corners of his mind all day was now trying to pull him under.

In, two, three, four. Hold, two. Out, two, three, four. Repeat.

_Calming breath in before he cuts so he doesn’t go too far. Out. Slice._

His eyes flew open as the memory came unbidden, unwanted, a frustrated whine rising in his throat as he gripped his left wrist. He couldn’t, he told his family he would stop, he needed to…

He needed to get out of here.

Donatello left the confines of his lab, looking around the main room. He could hear Leo and Raph sparring in the dojo, and spotted Mikey laying on his plastron in front of the TV, legs swinging through the air as he watched a cartoon.

Donnie hesitated. He shouldn’t be burdening his little brother with stuff like this, but he didn’t want to interrupt Leo and Raph either. Splinter was no doubt observing the older two sparring, and April and Casey were in school. He really should just try to focus on his project again, no one needed to-

_New cuts burning as he cleaned them because he wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t going to let them get infected._

“Mikey.” Donnie called out, his voice sounding strange and slightly strangled. Michelangelo turned, smile on his face that turned to concern and then to calm knowledge as he looked at his immediate older brother. Whether it was his voice, some expression on his face, or maybe the fact that he was still squeezing his wrist, Mikey cued in to what was going on quickly.

“Come on, let’s go to my room.” Mikey suggested, turning off the TV and heading that direction, looking for any sign of protest from Donnie, who silently followed.

“So what’s up D?” Mikey asked casually as they entered, immediately clearing away room for the both of them to sit on the floor.

“Brain won’t shut up. I need a distraction.” Donnie admitted, eyes looking anywhere but at Mikey, guilt rising and twisting into something darker that threatened to suffocate him.

“Hey.” Mikey quickly booped him on the nose, startling Donnie out of his spiraling thoughts. “It’s ok to ask for help sometimes D, stop hating yourself for it. Now come on, sit.”

Donnie sat cross-legged on the floor, Mikey joining him a moment later after pulling some paints and brushes out from behind a pile of stuff.

“Now close your eyes and hold out both your arms.” Mikey requested, a grin on his face.

“Why would I-”

“Come on, Donnie, trust me on this.” Mikey pleaded, eyes going wide with his perfected and practically patented youngest-brother-puppy-dog-eyes.

“You know that doesn’t work on me, right?” Donnie pointed out, raising an eyebrow. Mikey said nothing in response, just whimpered softly and somehow amped up the sadness in his expression.

“Oh alright, fine.” Donnie closed his eyes, rolling them at Mikey’s softly whispered _yes_ , and held out his arms.

“Now talk to me about your latest project.” Mikey requested as Donnie felt cold paint touch his forearm, making him shiver slightly at the sudden contact. “And no peaking or moving your arms, I _know_ how much you gesture while ranting about science stuff.”

Donnie talked, starting slowly at first, about how the Shellraiser’s navigation system needed an upgrade, and while he was at it he could try to up its max speed, as if they didn’t already race through the streets, words picking up speed as he mentally pictured the different projects he was talking about and trying to keep up with the multitude of ideas that ran through. Mikey hummed occasionally, proof that he was listening while focused on his own little project, every now and then having to remind Donnie not to move his arms when his hands started twitching as he was talking about a particularly exciting idea that had his speech speeding to an almost unintelligible rate. Donatello lost track of how long they stayed like that, him rushing through project ideas and fighting to keep still while Michelangelo silently worked, the strange twist on how things normally were nearly throwing him for a loop. Though, when Mikey focused, he was focused, and sometimes there was just so much running through his head that Donnie just needed some way of letting it out before it became too much. They were different, like yin and yang or the opposite sides of an infinity symbol, but still part of the same whole.

“Alright D, you can open your eyes.”

Donnie did, instantly looking down to see what Mikey had done.

His breath caught in his throat.

Trailing over the scars normally covered by his wraps on both arms were seven butterflies of different colors with beautiful shimmering wings. At the base was a brown one with the Hamato clan symbol on its upper wings, then above it a yellow one with red edges, next, a black one with white streaks and spots, then three with green edges but different center colors, blue, red, then orange. And finally, wings spread over his pulse point, a purple one with green edges.

“Mikey…” Donatello trailed off, speechless.

“You heard of the Butterfly Project?”

Donnie just nodded in response, even if he could think of something to say, the words would be blocked by the lump in his throat.

“Then you know what those mean.” Mikey said, placing a hand on Donnie shoulder, making him look up to see the soft smile on his younger brother’s face. “We’re _here_ for you Donnie.”

Donatello lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Mikey while being careful of the freshly painted butterflies, shaking with too many emotions as he pressed his face into Mikey’s shoulder.

“ _Thank you._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> So yep, that happened. Can you tell I don’t know how to end things, lol. This is technically part of a larger fic that I’m working on (but I was really proud of how this turned out and technically it can stand on its own if I never post that) so I thought I’d go ahead and post this. Basically, in that fic Donnie has depression and it’s him trying to deal with it on his own, even as it gets worse. I’m still working on that, I actually have a lot of it written (current word count is a little over 5000 words), but I don’t want it to be a fic without a proper ending, so right now I’m not sure if I’ll ever post it. If I can come up with a proper ending then I’ll start posting it chapter by chapter.


End file.
